1. IntroductionAs the world leader in retail industry, the Carrefour Group, through over fifty years of dedicated efforts, is now the largest retailer in Europe and second largest in World. Since established, through a process of merge and acquisition, Carrefour has already expanded its market to different retail scales around the global, which includes hypermarket, supermarket, cash&carry and convenience stores. According to the financial report of Carrefour group, by the end of 2012, it had already generated 101.3 million Euro of sales under banners. Moreover, it opened 9,994 stores from different scales in 33 countries globally. Therefore, it is not surprise to find it has over 100 million customers world widely. Carrefour has its clear mission adapting different cultures, which includes to promote quality for everyone and ensure the safety of its products, meet all the expectations of customers and to provide customers with freedom to choose with specific ranges of Carrefour products. On the way to accomplish their mission, marketing strategy are implemented orderly by Carrefour group. As Cambra-Fierro and Ruiz-Benítez (2011) illustrate in their research, the basic strategy of Carrefour is making this brand globalized, through establishing as its main axes on the client and a full local adaptation and integration. No matter where Carrefour expands to, the commitment to local economic environment is an unchangeable strategy for Carrefour. Carrefour is also famous for training local staff and manager which can adapt to native environment more quickly. According to the key figures of Carrefour, it now has 360,000 employers world widely, and these employers are naturally sensitive to local consumer behavior. It is evident that Carrefour obtain a huge success in China since it was embrace by As statistics shown in Chuang ,Wei, Donegan, & Ganon’s report(2011), by 2009, Carrefour ranked 7th among all chain stores in China with CNY¥36,600m in sales.

When people are applauding for Carrefour’s victory, the whole retail industry is wondering the reason behind its success. Therefore, this proposal is aiming at illustrating a framework with the case of Carrefour, investigate the reasons contributed to its huge success, and detect whether this model is applicable to the whole industry and make the whole retail sector better off.

2. Brief History of CarrefourThe Carrefour Company was created by the Fournier and Defforey families in 1959. In 1960, the first Carrefour supermarket was opened in Annecy, a city in eastern France that had become increasingly industrialized since World War II. From this first outlet, Carrefour changed itself into a worldwide entity with more than 15,600 stores spanning 34 countries around the globe. Between 1961 and 1962, business at Carrefour increased 45 percent and salaries increased as well. In 1963, Carrefour created a new shop concept known as the hypermarket. In 1970，Carrefour went public and Carrefour shares were listed on the Paris stock exchange. In 1976, Carrefour introduced its own production under no label. They assured that “Just high quality product for low price”. Between 1978 and 1982, the greatest number of new Carrefour stores was established outside of France, especially in Latin countries. Profits proved high at its stores in Brazil, Argentina, and Spain. In the 1990s, expansion in Central and South America was extremely strong. Carrefour moved into Mexico in 1993 and opened the first chain hypermarket. By 1997, Carrefour operated about 60 stores in South America and was generating $7 billion in sales in Brazil and Argentina. In 2000, Carrefour merged with Promodès SA to become the largest European food retailing group (second largest worldwide). Carrefour also became Europe's leading operator of supermarkets, convenience stores, discount stores, cash-and-carry outlets, and hypermarkets. With more than 8,800 stores in 26 countries and revenues of nearly $65...

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...Carrefour
Author: Salome Gogashvili
University of Georgia
A hypermarket or multi department store is a superstore which combines a supermarket and a department store. The result is a very large retail facilitywhich carries an enormous range of products under one roof, including full linesof groceries and general merchandise. When they are planned, constructed, andexecuted correctly, a consumer can ideally satisfy all of his or her routine weeklyshopping needs in one trip. The example of hypermarket have been set up inMalaysia is Carrefour, Tesco, Jusco, and Giant (foreign hypermarkets) besidesother local hypermarket such as Mydin. Following are background of theCarrefour hypermarket and Mydin hypermarket.The first Carrefour store opened on 3 June 1957, in suburban Annecy near a crossroads (carrefour in French). Today it is the smallest Carrefour location inthe world. The group was created by Marcel Fournier and Denis Defforey andgrew into a chain from this first sales outlet. In 1999 it merged with Promodès,known as Continent, one of its major competitors on the French market.Marce Fournier and Denis Defforey had attended several seminars in theUnited States led by "The Pope of modern distribution" Bernardo Trujillo, whoinfluenced other famous French executives like Édouard Leclerc (E.Leclerc),Gérard Mulliez (Auchan), Paul Dubrule (Accor), and Gérard Pélisson (Accor).Their slogan was "No...

...CarrefourCarrefour is the second largest and more successful hypermarket company in the world behind Wal-Mart. In Europe is the hypermarket with more revenues and sales. Carrefour has presence in 30 countries around the world and owns 12.028 stores worldwide (Carrefour, 2006). Carrefour founded the idea of retail-shop which means food- retailers and contains supermarkets, hypermarkets, hard discount, convenience stores, cash and carry, and e-commerce.
Carrefour was created in 1959 by the Fournier and Defforey families. They opened their first store on the year of 1960 in Annecy, Haute-Savoie. The history of Carrefour can't be tracked only focusing on Carrefour itself, is has to be tracked following at the same time the history of their best business partner Promodes. Through history Promodes and Carrefour have been competitors in the food-retail market but any of those companies were not successful until their alliance in 1999. In 1963 Carrefour opened their first hypermarket surprising the world with this new concept, meanwhile Promodes in 1972 introduced the concept of "convenience store" to the food market. In 1990 both companies realized that good quality was not enough for the costumer so they decided to offer hard discounts in their businesses. During the 80's decade competition from outside Europe tried to enter to the...

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MBA intake 10
Strategic Management and Business Policy
Submitted by: Rawi El Masry
Submitted to: Dr.Sherif Lotfy
Case Study Carrefour
Table of Content
1. Introduction
Carrefour is the famous French multinational retailer headquartered in Boulogne Billancourt, France, in Paris. Carrefour means "crossroads" and "public square" in French.Carrefour is the market leader for retail business in Europe & number 2 worldwide after Wal-Mart.
It's present in 34 countries across the globe within 14 countries across the MENA region. It is largest hypermarket chain in terms of size. The hypermarket exceeds 2500 meters in terms of space.
It is one of the largest hypermarket chains in the world. The third in profit (after Wal-Mart and Tesco).
Carrefour operates mainly in Europe; it's also present in North America as for example Argentina and Brazil and in the Middle East in Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia.
Carrefour in the Middle East is managed by Majid Al Futtaim Retail under the umbrella of Majid El Futtaim Group. The holding company is based in Dubai; it owns and operates shopping malls, retail, and leisure establishments in the Middle East and North Africa, with operations in 12 countries and over 24,000 employees. The...

...What is the biggest competitive threat facing Carrefour as it expands in global markets?
Carrefour had a concept of been a giant store(hypermarket) but along the line, the company faced some challenges which they found difficult to adapt to easily, Some of the challenges were due to changing consumer consumption habits and Carrefour could not meet up with this challenge because of the little depths in some of their product categories.Carrefour also pulled out from the American market because retailing channels were quite diverse. They were long entrenched shopping malls, discount stores and whole sale clubs such as Pace and Sam that were offering rock bottom prices, other category killers that offer tremendous depth in certain product categories which was not the case with Carrefour. Another major problem with Carrefour was the size of their shop which was considered too big and too overwhelming by their customers and at the same time not offering much product depths, the Company tried to rectify this problem in other markets by opening new formats like mini hyper and Carrefour express.
The executives of Carrefour also made a huge mistake that played right into the hands of their competitors Royal Ahold NV in their quest to build a global brand by changing the names of hundreds of Promodes shops they acquired, this made a...

...Carrefour
In mid-1972
Decisions about speed and direction of future growth, and how to finance that growth
Company Background
• Begun operations in 1960 with a supermarket (650 mts2) in France
• In 1963 opened the first hypermarket (2.500 mts2) just outside of Paris, France
• Between 1965 and 1971 sales grew at an annual rate exceeding 50% (non food products accounted for 40% of that volume).
• Corporate assets growth as faster as sales
• Starting in 1970, new stores called “commercial centers” (25.000 mts2) were opened
• At the end of 1971: Carrefour had 16 stores wholly owned, 5 stores operating as joint ventures, and franchise agreements with 7 stores
• Their strategy was to build stores outside of towns in land that could be acquired very inexpensive. Total investment per m2 of selling space fully equipped equal to about one-third that of traditional supermarkets and stores
• Each store manager operated as a profit center with almost complete freedom in decision making (decentralized management)
Factors favoring growth
• Consumer acceptance was due to Convenience and price.
o Variety of products (almost any product purchased more than once a year could be bought at a Carrefour store)
o Carrefour operated discount gasoline outlets at many stores
o Carrefour operated on an average gross margin of about 15% (on food and nonfood items)
o The gross margins (and by implication, the...

...Unethical cases of Carrefour
I would like to discuss the unethical pricing activity of Carrefour.
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Carrefour S.A. is a French international hypermarket chain. It is the one of the largest hypermarket chains in the world, the second largest retail group in the world in terms of revenue and third largest in profit after Wal-Mart and Tesco. Carrefour operates mainly in Europe, Argentina, Brazil, China, and Colombia, but also has shops in North Africa and other parts of Asia, with most stores being of smaller size than hypermarket or even supermarket. Carrefour means "crossroads" in French. (Wong, F. Q. 2011.)
Carrefour is being criticized for its dishonest and misleading pricing of products sold in China, including Shanghai, Tianjin, and Kunming etc. Many consumers complained that they paid more money than what they had seen on the price tag. Others complained about the price listed on the price tag did not reflect the actual price of the product. In 4Ps, this was related to the unethical behavior of pricing in its marketing activities. Here are some examples of this fraudulent conduct:
In Kunming, it was found that the original price of one pack of squid shreds is one hundred and thirty eight dollar. But when staffs of Carrefour wrote the price on the price tag, they wrote as follow:
Many consumers believed that the price was thirteen point eight dollar. So...

...With over 410,000 employees, 110,000 of them in France, the Carrefour group ranks among the top 13 private employers in the world. Wherever it is an employer, Carrefour aspires to be seen as a benchmark in human resources management and social responsibility. Attracting, training, supporting and securing the loyalty of employees: the group makes every effort to support the development of its staff members, who are, after all, its ambassadors in dealing with the company’s customers.
A broad range of skills and professions
Through its various brands, the Carrefour group offers employees over 120 different professions and seeks to provide the greatest possible access to all its employees.
1. A variety of professions, offering opportunities to all kinds of people
The group places its emphasis on the skills needed in its stores, where our employees come into close contact with their customers. Certain key, traditional retail roles are given particular attention: department managers, checkout operators and self-service assistants, for example. The Carrefour group seeks to cultivate an entrepreneurial spirit among its employees, to develop their sense of customer service and to help them rise to the challenges of commerce. It offers career opportunities to all kinds of people, graduates and otherwise, those tackling their first jobs and highly experienced professionals, throughout the world. At the same time, the...

...Carrefour
International Businesses
Table of Contents
Executive Summary…………………………………………………………....……...3
Introduction…………………………………………………………………………....5
History………………………………………………………………………………....6
Industry Analysis………………………………………………………………….…...9
Company Analysis……………………………………………………………………12
Competitor Analysis………………………………………………………………….17
Recommendations………………………………………………………………….....21
Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………....23
Methodology……………………………………………………………………….....25
Exhibits........…………………………………………………………………….……26
Bibliography………………………………………………………………………….28
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
History
Carrefour is the largest retailer in Europe and the second largest retailer in the
world, after Wal-Mart. Carrefour is based mostly in Europe; however, the company is
also located in four of the seven continents. These areas include: the Americas, Africa,
Europe, and Asia. Carrefour has been on the rise in expanding into many new areas and
has a focus on new and emerging markets. One of these markets is China, where
Carrefour is opening seventy-three new stores.
Company Information
Carrefour is a hypermarket that specializes in grocery and retail items. These
items include: hardware, clothing, perishable and non-perishable food items, and a
variety of other household items. Carrefour’s networks relating to various retail
businesses include supermarkets, hypermarkets,...